


The Waterfall

by Ballades



Series: Questionable Chemistry [6]
Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: F/M, NSFW, Oral Sex, cullen pls, this is all greendelle's fault, unrepentant smut, waterfall sex, your face cullen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-06
Updated: 2015-03-06
Packaged: 2018-03-16 14:59:13
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,232
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3492677
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ballades/pseuds/Ballades
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Let's be up front here: Cullen, the Inquisitor, a waterfall, sex.  Boom.  In you go.</p><p>Inspired by <a href="http://greendelle.tumblr.com/post/112757068266/wails">Greendelle's blush-worthy art.</a></p>
            </blockquote>





	The Waterfall

The trail is narrow and barely visible in the deepening dusk, rising in hairpin-like switchbacks up the side of the mountain. Cullen rides behind Aeveth, both of their mounts picking their way over the dirt track, and dodges branches gamely. It’s summer in the Hinterlands, and the trees have decided this particular trail needs to be exceptionally overgrown.

“Where is this place?” he calls out. A detour on the way back from Honnleath, she’d told him, just a day off schedule.

“Almost there!” she replies. “It’s ahead.”

They crest the ridge of the mountain and find themselves surprisingly in a valley hidden between tall granite walls. A river winds lazily through it, forming a pond in the flatter part, and inexplicably, there is somehow a small waterfall at the far end.

“This looks like a good place to camp,” Aeveth announces, dismounting. 

Cullen takes in the scenery, notes the large rocks behind which thieves could hide, the obvious advantage of the high walls, the caves in which ruffians could lurk, the uphill blind approach behind them. He sees the sheer drop of the cliff in front, hears the loud splashing of the near waterfall and the faint thunder of the farther one, nudges his mount forward a pace to listen for hoofbeats.

“No, absolutely not,” he tells her. “This place is completely indefensible.”

Aeveth sighs. “There was no one around when we got here. I checked. The Inquisition sweeps this area regularly. I checked. There are thankfully no bears around either. I checked that too. So, Cullen, please relax, and stop thinking about brigands somehow materializing out of thin air and dropping in on us.”

Cullen frowns for a second. “They might.”

“What, like in Varric’s books?” Aeveth laughs then, reaching under her horse to undo the girth strap. “If they can manage that, they’re welcome to face me.” She pulls the tack off, drops it to the ground. “It’s past sundown and we’ve been in the saddle all day. There is a body of water in front of me and a bar of soap that has lain sorely unused in my bags. Are you going to stop me, Cullen?”

He bites his tongue on his first response, settles for the second. “Not at all.”

“Excellent.” She reaches for her shoulder, begins undoing the straps of her armor. A pauldron falls to the ground.

Cullen dismounts then, busies himself with setup, purposely does not look at Aeveth as more pieces of her armor land at her feet. He brings both horses to a nearby tree to secure them, doesn’t glance at the lean muscles of her shoulders and arms as she stretches up. He doesn’t catch the sway of her hips as she wiggles her breeches and smalls off, misses the play of light over her backside when she bends over - _Maker_ \- and slips her pants off her legs. And Cullen most certainly does not breathe out very deliberately, because he isn’t looking when she tosses a smile over her shoulder at him.

He emphatically does not hear her little shriek as she gets into the water, nor her swear at how surprisingly cold it is. He doesn’t think about what that water would do to her body, carefully keeps his thoughts neutral, focused even on the task at hand, and not on how her nipples would tighten into dark brown buds, nor how she would feel, pressed against his chest, her skin pebbled with goosebumps.

 _She is tired and travel weary,_ Cullen tells himself, even as he begins undoing the buckles of his armor. _Likely will go straight from the bath to bed._ He unlaces his boots, steps out of them. _Probably wants nothing to do with me tonight, romantically._ Ties, why does his arming doublet have so many ties?

“Oh, for Andraste’s -” he snaps to himself finally, and divests himself of the rest of his clothing.

Aeveth is disappointingly up to her shoulders in water by the time he stalks over to the water’s edge. He splashes in, gritting his teeth against the chill as he starts wading out. Aeveth smirks at him when he reaches her, proffers him the soap. He takes it. It smells pleasantly of lemons.

“Come to join me, have you?”

“Something like that,” he mutters, but she gives him a quick kiss on the cheek, and his sourness evaporates. He cocks an eyebrow at her as he works the soap over himself. She’s watching him with her lower lip caught between her teeth.

“You look like you might need some help with that,” she says, taking the soap from him. Her hand finds his under the water, and she turns, towing him towards the waterfall. They walk up a shallow incline, and as they go Cullen can see the line of water retreating down Aeveth’s back, revealing her shoulderblades bit by bit. He extends his hand and traces the outline of one as it moves beneath her skin.

She pauses so briefly that no one but he would have noticed, keeps going until they’re standing right next to the fall of water that spills over only a foot or two over their heads. Aeveth’s lips turn up into a small smile as she holds her hand out, bisecting a cascade of water neatly in two. “Just as I remember it,” she says softly. She turns to him then, puts herself half a pace away.

Cullen stares at her, entranced with the reflections playing out over her golden-hued skin, at the wet tendrils of jet black hair clinging to her neck, at the openness and warmth in her lightly-tilted brown eyes. He stares at the flawless curve of her bottom lip, at the way the lines of her body flow into one another, leading him from lips to chin to jaw, down past the graceful arch of her neck, right to the rounded swell of her breasts, a hair above the surface of the water.

Aeveth smiles at him, lifting the bar of soap to her neck. Without taking her eyes off him she moves it over her skin, leaving wide, glistening trails behind that catch the moonlight. She soaps herself, sliding the bar across collarbones finely formed, over shoulders he’s nipped countless times, over breasts that fit just so in his hands.

“C’mere,” she whispers to him, and Cullen closes with her, groaning at the warm touch of her body and the delicious, slippery feel of the soap. He winds his arms around her just as she pushes her chest against his, and he groans again, his head tilting back.

“Aeveth,” he mumbles as her lips touch his neck. “Love -”

“Hmm?” she says between loud, wet kisses. He feels her teeth lightly at the juncture of his neck and shoulder, and his breath hisses out long, unspooling into the night, subsumed by the sound of water hitting water.

Cullen takes hold of her shoulders then, directs her one step, two, until they’re partially covered by the waterfall. He removes the bar of soap from her hand, twists around, chucks it vaguely at the riverbank.

“Cullen!” Aeveth exclaims.

He kisses her.

Amidst the quiet roar of the waterfall he kisses her, claims her lips with his own, tastes her on his tongue, familiar and intoxicating. Cullen kisses Aeveth and they sway, continue kissing even as rivulets of water run over their heads and down their cheeks, seeking a way into the sealed joining of their mouths. He kisses her until she needs to break away, gasping, leans forward and kisses her again under the spray of water, kisses her until her hands come up and her fingers wind into his hair and she pulls him impossibly close.

Cullen kisses her, _Maker,_ he kisses her, revels in the heat of her body against his juxtaposed with the cold of the water coming down between them. He brushes his thumbs over her cheekbones, inhales when he feels the backs of her fingers on his cheek, settles the edges of his palms over her eyes to keep them closed. “Do you trust me?” he says against her lips. Her chest is heaving up and down, up and down.

“Yes,” she breathes, “yes, my love.”

He applies a bit of pressure then, angling her head back; he maneuvers her under the waterfall until the water is pouring over her hair and forehead. He presses a finger of each hand into her ears to close them off, waits for her anticipatory smile before he kisses her again.

Aeveth melts into him, moaning into his mouth. Cullen kisses her for a few minutes more, timing his breaths around hers, around the droplets of water that pelt them both. He draws back then, draws her back, cants his head to the side to look at her flushed cheeks, her parted, full lips, her dilated pupils.

“Cullen,” she says, and he thrills to the sound of her voice. He loves it when he gets her like this, soft and yielding, all adoration and eagerness and Aeveth, pure Aeveth. Whatever she’s about to say next he’ll never know, because he puts his arms around her then, gets his hands under her ass, and picks her up.

She wraps her legs around his hips, her hands fluttering down onto his shoulders, and arches back to show him the full flexibility of her body. The top of her head touches the fall of water, and her hair flows with it, pulled straight down in the stream. Cullen dips his head down, tongue flicking out to taste the water pooling in the hollow of her throat. It’s sweet and refreshing, drop by drop of it working into his mouth as he kisses a line down from her neck, between her breasts.

She moans again, and it only serves to fan his need. Surface, he needs a surface before he goes insane. He splays a hand against her back for a second to help her straighten, then begins walking, following the uphill slant of the riverbed. Aeveth curls over him, their skins shivering together, presses her lips to his neck, under his ear, along his jawline. She ghosts kisses over his lips, grips his ass hard as he goes. He groans, walks faster until the water level is around his knees.

“Wall?” she asks, right before she kisses him under his chin.

Cullen growls. “Wall,” he affirms, and finds the smoothest bit of sandstone he can see. Aeveth grunts when he pushes her up against it.

“Cullen, Cullen,” Aeveth pants, “love, do you trust me?”

He kisses her, demanding, before she wrenches herself away from him, unhooking her legs from around him, her feet splashing down. Her eyes meet his.

“Do you trust me?” she asks again.

“Of course I do.” A nip, met with air as she avoids him.

“No, do you trust me with magic? Right now, using it, do you trust me?”

Everything goes still then.

He thinks of everything they've been through, thinks of the nightmares and wild magic, the ache of being apart, their long journey back to each other. He thinks of the relationship they've had to rebuild painstakingly from the ground up, and all the lessons learned about one another after committing mistake upon mistake. Through it all she has never knowingly hurt him, has been unfailing in her support of his wants, has not once been inconsiderate of his past and the terrors that hide there. Cullen smiles at her.

“Yes,” he says.

Aeveth sobs out a breath and kisses him hard, her left hand cupping his cheek. Faintly, he feels power forming. As she pulls away she raises her right hand, wreathed in the white glow of magic, and slaps it against the sandstone behind her. Instantly a glyph of fire blooms, spreads through the rock and down into the water, radiates heat out, warming them both. They both gasp. Cullen feels his desire roar to life within him, going from a spark to a raging fire, pulsing through his groin, rocketing straight down into his cock. He groans, and before he does something to ruin the moment, he drops to his knees in the water, grabs Aeveth’s leg, and hikes it up over his shoulder.

“Oh!” she exclaims, right before he kisses her between her legs. She smells lightly of lemon.

It takes a few moments; she’s not quite ready, but Cullen knows what he’s doing. He encircles her other leg with one of his arms, parts her with his fingers, slides the tip of his tongue along one of her lower lips. “Oh!” she exclaims again, and her hands find purchase in his hair. He can feel it squeak between her fingers.

He laps at her again, parts her wider, sucks on her, discovers anew every last bit of her with the tip of his tongue and the pads of his fingers until his chin is covered with her slick. Cullen knows her now, has known her countless times and hopefully will know her countless times more, understands that when he runs his tongue up the side of her clit she will tremble and shake, knows that when he laps delicately at her while rubbing one of her folds between his fingers that she will moan his name and go weak. He glances up at her as her steadies her, up over the soft plane of her stomach, up through the valley of her breasts, up until their eyes meet. Cullen holds her gaze for a long, long moment before he pushes the flat of his tongue against her in a broad stroke, ending with a flick against her clit.

Aeveth’s knee buckles as she cries out. Cullen holds her firmly, repeats his move faster, repeats it a third and a fourth and a fifth time, and by the sixth Aeveth’s head is ground hard against the stone behind her, her upper back is arching, pushing her chest out, and she is coming, Maker she is coming so wonderfully just for him, her hands clenching and unclenching in his hair, her voice simply a series of gasps growing sharper as he continues to lick and suck, keeping her climax rolling on. Aeveth wails, the sound bouncing oddly off the water and the stone; she keens, and Cullen voices his own response as he feels the shuddering of her body in his arm around her leg, her knee and thigh over his shoulder, her core, wet and hot against his mouth.

Cullen shoves her leg off, rises swiftly, kisses her hard enough to make their teeth click. Now, now, he needs her after seeing her come for him. His hands slide down until they fit over the delightful curve of her ass; he picks her up again, sets her against the wall. She twines her arms around his neck, circles his waist with her legs, smiles at him, offers herself up.

She is velvet and satin when he pushes into her, velvet and satin and delectable, unbearable tightness. Aeveth lets out a drawn-out moan as he parts her; she takes him into herself one slow, stretching centimeter at a time. The friction of it is torturously sensual. Cullen clenches his jaw and breathes evenly, pulls out just a bit and pushes back in, and is rewarded with her throaty sigh when at last he is fully inside her.

“Oh, Maker," she says, awed. "Perfect, all of this, you, perfect.”

“You said before…” Cullen swallows, a bit lightheaded. “...just as you remembered. How long have you been thinking about doing this?” Cullen closes his eyes for just a moment as the sensation of filling her overwhelms him. He breathes deeply, opens them again, grins as a drop of water falls from his hair, rolls off the end of his nose.

“Longer than I should admit,” she replies coyly, lifting a hand to trace the line of his jaw, shifting her hips to better accommodate him. “Ohhh,” she exhales. _”Yes._ ”

He looks at her then, silvered and shining in the moonlight, thinks about the way she looked beneath him in her sanctuary, wonders if situations like this will become a habit. 

“Are we going to make this a regular occurrence?” Aeveth asks him breathily, and Cullen smiles at how their thoughts match. “Because -”

She cuts off as he strokes into her deeply, her throat constricting around her words. “Yes,” he says to her, thrusting into her again. She moans, her eyes rolling back in her head, follows it up with a whimper as their hips connect yet again. “Definitely, yes.”

“Cu -” and he interrupts her with another pulse of his hips. “-ullen,” she finishes, and he smiles widely with delight, resolves right then to make it so she can’t finish saying his name. “Cull - ah, Cull - _Maker, Cull…!”_

“Yes, love?” he says to her, his voice a growling baritone, his hips pumping. She whines, arching again.

“Ass.”

“I do love yours,” he quips back, and she laughs then, rolls her hips against him, takes him swiftly into her, stealing his breath. Oh, he’s close, he can barely restrain himself from starting something gorgeous and savage, something to make her face go slack and her lips crinkle into an O. “Maker, _help,_ ” he groans, a guttural sound. “Darling, hold on.”

Aeveth does, and Cullen gives up the last of his control.

Cullen gives up control; he abandons it completely. Cullen buries his face in the crook of Aeveth’s neck and braces his hands against the wall and drives his hips against hers hard and fast, hard enough to hear the hitches of Aeveth’s breath every time he slams into her, fast enough to send her voice spiraling, wavering, into the air. “Cullen!” she gasps, and that’s it, it’s all over for him. Cullen snarls out his climax against her skin, his breathing harsh as he comes in her, comes long through shallow, rasping thrusts, comes in spurts of sudden, abundant seed. Aeveth’s hand fists in his hair then, and she yanks his head back to fasten her mouth over his in a searing kiss made more intense by the rhythmic slap of their bodies melding over and over and over.

When he finally stills against her, Aeveth unwraps herself from him, drops to her feet. She wobbles and puts a hand against the rock, laughing breathlessly. “I love you,” she says to him as he sits down hard in the water, winded.

It takes him a minute before he can answer. “And I you,” Cullen replies. He stays down.

Aeveth laughs again, then joins him in the warm water. Her hand flares with magic as she adjusts the heat of the glyph. When it’s to her satisfaction, she scoots up against the wall and sighs. Drops of water scatter across the surface of the pond as she lifts her arm and gestures at him, beckoning.

Cullen shifts, goes over to her, arranges himself so that he can lean against her without crushing her. He rests his head on her chest and closes his eyes, smiles to himself when he feels the soothing touch of her fingers combing through his hair. There is silence.

Then, “Don’t fall asleep, love.”

“Why not?”

She snickers. “I need you to find my soap that you so rudely threw.”

“Maker’s breath, Aeveth, you can’t be serious.”

“Just try me, Cullen. That was nice soap.”

Cullen sighs heavily.

**Author's Note:**

> Comments and kudos are always appreciated *eyebrow eyebrow*


End file.
